I am stuck in the vast bleakness of North Dakota, no offense to anyone who happens to call this fine, windy state their home and I have been doing some talking with a couple of a family members. A little bit of history on my family, I come from a cult of teachers, I say this in the loosest of terms but it is what I believe to be true about a family who spawns and recruits teachers. I never wanted to be a teacher when I was a kid, but lo' and behold, I am now a proud Middle School teacher and it's not as bad as some would have you believe.
What has me thinking on this blustery evening is something that my uncle said, who, as it so happens, is not a teacher.
I don't see my family all that often but when I do there is a lot of catching up to do, we talk about work, relationships, kids and family and after about a day or two the heavier topics abound in conversation. Politics and government are two big areas of woe for my family, be it on the state level or the national level.
As I said before, there are a lot of teachers who take part in these conversations and being a group of liberals anyway, we are very opinionated about our views. My cousin or my uncle's daughter, is a principal and the conversation took a sharp turn when the topic of lay-offs and unemployment came up. You see, as the country tries to rebound after several tough economic months, teachers are still standing in front of the proverbial pitching machine and continue to get smacked around by a series of monotonous blows to our colleagues and ourselves.
My uncle's idea was this... Teachers work hard, if you are not a teacher I can tell you from experience they do, they put up with having to raise other people's kids, including the kids who's parents would rather them learn about the world through Call of Duty and The Jersey Shore rather than teaching them good morals themselves. Teachers take up the torch and try to instill decent morals and good work ethics and they do it all for some of the lowest starting salaries in the American job market. (I know, only having to work 9 months out of the year may seem to some of you to be a slack job but good teachers, the real good ones, need the time off to recuperate and prepare for the next year.)
Regardless of these qualities, regardless of the aspirations and good-doings of teachers the government sees it necessary to continuously cut budget and spending for our schools. Good teachers are being let go by institutions because tenure has older, worse (not always) teachers in the front of classrooms and the people who are getting hurt more than anyone are the students. Where is the appeal? Why do people keep wanting to be teachers in this unstable economy? Constantly being blamed for the next generations apathetic attitudes while irresponsible parents are still buying their kids the latest in greatest in xbox snuff, more worried about their daughters fashion, less about math/science/reading/language/etc... grades...
In my uncles words, the government has done so much to make teachers look like the bad guys that eventually people will stop wanting to teach. The appeal of leading the students of today into the world of adults tomorrow will fall short of the fear of loosing jobs and wanting a more stable income, a better income. If teachers are continuously playing the role of the punching bag, who will you be able to pick on if that 'bag' were to suddenly be gone, no more? When will the governments step in and make sure teachers are protected, our youth looked after and placed in good, knowledgeable hands? Will starting teacher salaries bumped up to allow a new generation of teachers to WANT to teach?
What I am looking for are your thoughts, will there always be a steady flow of people wanting to go to a 4 year college to get an education degree, or will there come a day when teaching is an afterthought and either the powers-that-be will have to step in to make the profession a bit more attractive to college bound individuals or our standards for good teachers will have to be lowered to allow 'just about anyone' to teach.
It's a scary thought, but something I thought I would share.